Madrid: Suma Flamenca 2007 - MadridMan's Experiences

MadridMan is attending 10 performances of Suma Flamenca 2007 , the 2nd Annual May Flamenco Festival in the Comunidad de Madrid. About 50 performances are scheduled throughout La Comunidad de Madrid and about 30 of those are here in the City of Madrid.

Although I did attend the press conference last month for the 2007 inauguration for the 2nd annual festival which included one INCREDIBLE dance performance by Belén López , one singing performance, one press-conference, and one killer after-conference-cocktail-and-food-fest, Wednesday's show was the first I'd attended of the actual Suma Flamenca 2007 .

Wednesday, May 9 I attended the Flamenco concert starring "Bailaor de Madrid: El Güito" at the full Teatro Albéniz on the Calle de la Paz near Puerta del Sol.

El Güito is a well-known flamenco dancer with his own style, smooth, sweeping motions mixed with short, fast turns, always dances in wearing a vest. A true veteran in his element.

Two wonderful female flamenco dancers really spiced up the evening, what wonderful hand motions, what energy, what radiant smiles, one got a standing ovation.

Somewhat NOT surprisingly, the audience was comprised of about 98% Spaniards, most dressed very nicely, many in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, but obviously VERY happy to be there - as was I.

Suma Flamenca 2007 Description:

http://www.sumaflamenca.com/ http://www.sumaflamenca.com/calendario.asp

Last night's show, Thursday May 10, also in the Teatro Albéniz (no cameras) began with the young "Flamenco Soul" ("soulería") artist PITINGO CON HABICHUELAS (web: http://www.pitingo.com/ ). He was accompanied by Juan Carmona Habichuela on guitar (former member of Ketama - the one with the beard). It was very entertaining. CLICK HERE for YouTube Music Video of "Gwendoline".

Next came "La Moneta", a wonderful young Granadina flamenco dancer with lots of style and attitude. (See YouTube video la La Moneta HERE ) Definitely not your average flamenco artist in the traditional sense. She included lots of non-traditional steps and movements, facial expressions, and hand-movements which were astounding too. There's a short biography about her in English here . Last night she was backed up with cante by the "Campos"; a father and 2-son singing group - REALLY impressive. 2 guitars also accompanied the them, including one young guitarist, David Carmona - related to the Ketama Carmonas, and has accompanied Lavapies singer Diego El Cigala (web for info and music clips: http://www.diegoelcigala.com/ - whom I'll be watching tonight - and whom has won 2 Latin Grammys - can't wait for that concert!).

This particular show was really lively, the audience much more spontaneous, a number of must-be Gypsies shouting words and phrases of encouragement (like "¡Ole!" and "¡Venga, Antonio!") during the different numbers. This night's show was particularly long, about 2 hours total with a 15-minute break between PITINGO and LA MONETA - the audience VACATED the theater totally. I waited awhile, then left the theater seats to use the restroom to find most of the audience out in the street smoking and another bunch at the bar across the street. I was practically alone - except for the long line at the ladies restroom. No waiting at the men's room. Go figure!

Suma Flamenca 2007 description:


This night, as they'd done the previous night, were passing out fans to all the ladies upon entering the theater. The fans were wood and white cloth in skeleton and had red polka-dots and "SUMA FLAMENCA 2007" written on them. Last night we'd gotten two so I didn't try to get one this night. Besides, this night I wasn't handed one upon entering. Just for ladies, I thought, although I saw a number of men inside fanning themselves at the beginning of the performances. It was a little warm.

Tonight, Friday May 11, the rather well-known resident of Lavapies (neighborhood in Madrid) Diego El Cigala sings/performs. He has 2 Latin Grammys and is maybe best known for his 2006 song with Cuban Bebo Valdés (on piano), "Lágrimas Negras" ( click here for YouTube video of the song).

Oh, thanks for the update! I can just pretend I'm there listening to all this great music and watching all the performers. Please continue to post your experiences at the other concerts.

Earlier this week the New York Times had an article called "In Search of the Real Flamenco." The author mentions La Soleá, Cardamomo , and Flamenco Candela as places to go for "real" flamenco. Click here to read the article.

Last night's show (Friday, May 11) with Diego El Cigala at Teatro Albéniz was quite entertaining.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but thought, "Well, if it's Flamenco, it's got to be good," and it was. Not knowing much about Diego El Cigala I thought he was your typical flamenco singer but this guy has introduced a Carribean Jazz fusion to his flamenco. It was like the " Buena Vista Social Club MEETS José Menese " - where Carribean Jazz meets traditional flamenco singing. It's an interesting combination.

Most of his songs were slow, and soft but one or two were very up-beat. He came back for one encore but never did sing his most popular song, "Lágrimas Negas" (originally accompied by Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés for the studio version) but this night's pianist, Jaime Calabuch Asensio, was equally as great - in my opinion.

The theater was full, few open seats, and it was mainly a 40-to-50-something ALL-Spanish crowd with a good number of young people too. The air conditioning was a little too cool - even for me, which is odd. The 20-something guy next to me was annoyingly taking notes by mobile-phone-light the entire concert. Presumably he was with "The Press". Upon entering the theater building, they once again passed out the Suma Flamenca 2007 hand-fans, but only to the ladies.

Trivia: It was Camarón himself who "named" him El Cigala.

Diego El Cigala's bio in English HERE .

Suma Flamenca 2007 description:

As an added bonus to the evening, while waiting for my significant other's sister to join me at the "Bar de las Torrijas" across the street from the Teatro Albéniz, I was seated at a table against the wall. But upon entering the bar initially, the place was mostly empty, being about 45 minutes before the concert, and I saw the one table available and I took it - RIGHT NEXT TO " El Güito " himself (Wednesday night's performer). He was sipping bottled water while talking to his (presumably) friend - one of the panel members at the Suma Flamenca 2007 press conference and whom was at this same bar Wednesday night too when I was there. Apart from this gentleman, no one was talking to, taking photos of, or otherwise bothering "El Güito" the entire 20 minutes he was sitting there before leaving. I sat eating my (house specialty) cold, fried bacalao (fish) and an alcohol-free beer with a perfect view of the filling, filling, filling bar with in-the-know flamenco fans as time drew close to SHOWTIME.

Tonight's Show: traditional flamenco singer JOSÉ MENESE performs at the Círculo de Bellas Artes at 10pm on Calle Alcalá 42.

I LOVE your review and reading about your evenings. You are so lucky to have been to these shows! Thanks for updating!

Thanks! Last night's show was José Menese in the Círculo de Bellas Artes at 10pm.

Upon arriving, for exercise, we (i.e. SHE!) decided to walk UP the BEAUTIFUL marble staircase to the (GULP!) 6th floor's Sala de Columnas. UGH! I was tired and sweaty upon reaching that level but luckily the area's temperature was comfortable.

We sat down (third row!) and ordered 2 white wines (8€!) from the waiter before the performance started. Luckily, in these rows there were tables ever 2 or 4 seats on which to rest our glasses.

WHAT A PERFORMANCE! I LOVED IT!! This was PURE "cante hondo" where the master Menese sang seated, lots of vibrato , waving hands, lots of deep, diaphram-grabbing sounds. Wow. What a thunderous voice he has. Classic "cante hondo", I understand. I think this was my favorite performance to date although I've liked aspects of each show I've seen so far.

The short, stocky-built José Menese drank water throughout the 2-hour performance, mentioned he had heart problems, wiped the sweat from his face a number of times, and even wiped tears from his eyes more than once when describing songs he was about to sing. LOTS of emotion in his singing, although I can't understand hardly a word nor can many Spaniards.

He was beautifully accompanied by the single guitar of Antonio Carrión.

After the show, my significant other and I stayed in our seats, enjoying the experience and talking about the performance while finishing our glasses of white wine. The audience had gone but a number of people gathered at the stage entrance/exit to greet José Menese and Antonio Carrión. We watched Señor Menese shake hands to many and kiss many others. Those waiting seemed to be real friends of his.

We then walked down the beautiful staircase to ground level, me stopping several times to take photos.

After the show, we started looking for someplace to have dinner (now, almost midnight!) so we walked towards Calle de Alcalá where we stopped so I could take some night-shots of the post-card-popular METROPOLIS building where Gran Vía meets Cale de Alcalá. Then we doubled back past the theater's entrance to catch José Menese exiting the theater with his 6-person entourage.

We walked on through Huertas (and someone tried to open my shoulder bag from behind) where we were meeting some friends at some Cuban bar with loud music, high temperature, cramped, generally unpleasant for me while TRYING to hear and understand everyone speaking in Spanish. Impossible for me in these environments - especially when all those people are much shorter than you (ME). I smiled, nodded politely at the conversation, and just did some people watching when I noticed one of the female back-up singers from the PINTINGO concert from Thursday night! Wow! I'm seeing flamenco personalities left-and-right now! I didn't speak to her though but she was standing right next to us.



Suma Flamenca description:
See a YOUNG José Menese performing ON THIS YOUTUBE video .

The NEXT show I'm attending is (singer) María Toledo at Casa Patas but there's some confusion for me about the date. It's listed as being on May 15 at 00:30 hours. So.... is that TECHNICALLY the early morning of May 15th or is that the LATE NIGHT of May 14th? The Casa Patas website lists this show as: "Martes, 15 de mayo, 24’30 horas". So again, is this late night 14th or is it EARLY EARLY morning of the 15th? Either way I want to go but don't want to miss it by mistake. Guess I'll have to call Casa Patas. This will be my first time at this place and am looking forward to the seeing it.

Saludos, MadridMan

Note: I skipped last night's María Toledo performance at Casa Patas. Call me lazy, but I was on the sofa last night at 9pm, still not having eaten dinner, and thinking I had to go downtown for the 12:30am show and probably not get home and to bed again until 3am and just decided not to go. My significant other was going to attend it with me but I didn't want her to suffer for it tomorrow (i.e. TODAY!) at work. It's too bad, too, because I really wanted to see Casa Patas from the inside. I'll have to schedule another one sometime soon - on a Friday or Saturday night, though.

I will, however, DEFINITELY be attending the next Suma Flamenca performance tomorrow, 17 May, of Catalunya Flamenca, Duquende y Chispa Negra, at the Teatro Albéniz at 10:30pm - a more reasonable hour for "a school night".

Saludos, MadridMan

MadridMan

Keep your energy up because I am enjoying reading about your personal views on the Suma Flamenca.

Bill

MadridMan why no picture of you and El Guito were you to busy eating all that delicious food or were you starstruck? :o

MM, if you don't make it to Casa Patas before July, maybe we can get a group together to go....My "significant other" and I have entered twice before, petered out bother times, and left before any show started.....So I still would really love to see a show here!!!!

Anyway, I love that you still call weeknights "school nights", I do that too, and now that I am a teacher, it is especially true!!!

Keep us posted on your next Flamenco concert! Your reviews are great!

By the way MadridMan I have some questions.

I understand this is the second year of this festival, do you feel it is popular with the locals? When you go to the shows are they compelety booked? How far in advance did you have to order your tickets?

Thanks

Bill

billy the man wrote: Not starstruck, no, nor was it because I was eating delicious food (but I was), but simply because he was there talking to a friend, presumably a STAR in his element and no one was bothering him so I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable/bothered by taking a photo.

laduque wrote: That's not a bad idea! Maybe it could be the start of a kind of tradition! "Flamenco with MadridMan!" - although some might find that title misleading. hehehe..

Bill from NYC wrote: At EVERY performance I've attended so far has been NEARLY, but not totally booked. They've been about 98% Spaniards as far as I could tell. These performances are part of a festival so they're more directed to those "in-the-know" than your average tourist. Maybe because the shows are not typically tourist-promoted Casa Patas, Café de Chinitas, or Corral de la Morería - although there is ONE show per each of those places too. The tickets are MUCH cheaper for these performances as well, ranging from 15-25 Euros so they're cheaper than the Typical-Tourist-Friendly-Tablaos. How far in advance did I have to order my tickets? I requested my tickets about a week before the festival started. But when I went to the José Menese concert last Saturday night there were still tickets available when I picked up my tickets. There might well be more tickets available for the later-in-the-festival shows if interested but the best seats are already gone I'm sure.

Saludos, MadridMan

I MISSED last night's show due to unforseen circumstances. ARGH!!! Tonight, I'LL CERTAINLY make it.

Saludos, MadridMan

Last night I attended the CAL, Son de la Frontera - artista invitada Martirio performance at the Teatro Albéniz at 8:30pm.

The theater was about three quarters full and was probably the least flamenco-like performance I'd seen so far. There was some good dancing by a couple of the palmeros (the guys who clap) to a few flamenco tunes but otherwise it was mainly nice guitar music and clapping. I suppone one could classify it as super-new-age-flamenco which had very little to do with classical flamenco. The performance was somewhat entertaining but must admit that if there had been an intermission that I would have strongly considered leaving. At the end the got a standing ovation - which surprised me. No photos were allowed and yet the young women next to us took about 4-photos WITH FLASH. They passed out Suma Flaneca 2007 Spanish fans to the ladies upon entering the theater.

Suma Flamenca 2007 description:
After the concert, at about 10pm, my significant other and I went to one of the nearby "Las Bravas" bars for their famed patatas bravas and also their gambas al ajillo with bread and beer. The bravas were good but I've had much better garlic shrimp before although these weren't bad. :p

Tonight at 10pm we're attending the Víctor Gorge "Serranito" classical flamenco guitar concert in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, located at the intersection of Gran Vía and Calle de Alcalá, very near the BANCO ESPAÑA metro station. I'm REALLY looking forward to that concert. Hope our seats are as good as they were the last time we were at the Círculo de Bellas Artes - THIRD ROW!

Another concert LAST night. I attended the Víctor Monge "Serranito" concert in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, 4th floor in the Sala de las Columnas.

I was really looking forward to this concert, ready for some REAL flamenco music, reading that "Serranito" was a true master at flamenco guitar. 2 of his songs, in the middle of the concert were just that, true-blue-flamenco guitar music when he played alone on stage. The first 5 songs and the last 5 songs were more flamenco-jazz fusion - definitely not what I was expecting for the evening and was a bit disappointed for this fact. But once I settled in and decided to enjoy the music for MUSIC and not for it being FLAMENCO I started to enjoy it. Lots of the tunes were energetic, lively, and full of different sounds which you don't usually hear in traditional flamenco music like the piano & synthesizer keyboard, electric bass guitar, bongo drum, cymbals, and even rattling bones. The young piano player was, I think for most in attendance, the hilight of the evening.

Suma Flamenca 2007 description:

After the show we walked back towards Atocha on the Calle del Prado and took a table outside on the terraza of the famed El Brillante. After waiting 20 minutes to be waited (1 waiter, 20 tables, and about 50 people) we went inside to the empty bar and ordered there, standing. We each had, OF COURSE, bocadillos de calamares and an order of patatas bravas along with some cold beer. Very good. On the way home it started to rain - thank goodness, it was getting hot and humid, now it's better.

Tonight's 7pm show is again at the Teatro Albéniz on Calle de la Paz near Puerta del Sol. It features Gerardo Núñez whom, ACCORDING to the Suma Flamenco description, should give us all more traditonal flamenco guitar entertainment. Looking forward to that and will detail my experience tomorrow once again.

Saludos, MadridMan

MadridMan

Did you think they we will see the release an album/CD of the live performances?

Bill

Who, the Suma Flamenca organization? If they don't, they'll miss out on an oportunity but no, I don't expect it. I'll let you know if they do, though.

Saludos, MadridMan

EXCELLENT! Last night's concert with flamenco guitar Gerardo Núñez was one of the best performances I'd seen for all of Suma Flamenca 2007. Jerezano Núñez, now living in Madrid, sat alone on stage and played to an appreciative 25% full Teatro Albéniz and received several standing ovations for his efforts.

WOW. That man can play! TWO THUMBS UP!

I'd imagined the crowd was as thin as it was because A) it was on a Sunday, and because B) the weather was threatening serious weather (which it did DURING/after the concert). Those whom attended got a wonderful show, fast fingers, and with lots of feeling.

Suma Flamenca 2007 description:

Next show is Thursday night's midnight show at Corral de la Morería with singer Terremoto. SEE THIS LINK IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ACCOMPANY MADRIDMAN FOR FREE!

Saludos, MadridMan